


Let Go

by xocean



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Gen, about this unexplored relationship, i wish, just a lot of feels, that will not be explored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8512000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xocean/pseuds/xocean
Summary: It is stranger that she wants to hear it from him, yet at every approaching opportunity Jean flees the vicinity of Charles Xavier.





	

She is praised by everyone, utter gratitude lining the vibes behind their words - "Jean, you were amazing" over and over - and it is strange that it makes her feel hollow more than happy.

She is thanked by few, Hank McCoy and that Eric Lehnsherr - "You did wonderfully" for saving his life, for bringing him back to life - and it is stranger that she wants to hear it from _him_ , yet at every approaching opportunity she flees the vicinity of Charles Xavier.

* * *

"Jean."

"Yes, Professor?"

She drops her books and they spatter down the staircase.

"Sorry!"

He watches her leave, and later Jean acknowledges that he _lets_ her leave.

* * *

" _Jean_."

He would dare to enter her dreams? She cannot believe it.

" _Jean_ ," Jean Jean Jean _Jean._

"I've unleashed my powers," she lashes out, desperate, "Isn't that what you wanted?"

The blood stained man in her dreams stares at her, dying, until she saves his life. Again and again.

* * *

She cannot avoid him forever, especially not when she literally has him for two different classes - once the school was rebuilt and classes resumed, that is. Still, she is good at entering last and sitting, no, slouching in a way that will not draw attention to her in his classes. She gets weird looks from Scott, who is far too jaded by his brother's death to prod her about it.

So when the door shuts, a little too forcefully for a regular door, after the last student, she resigns herself to it.

"Jean," the Professor says, his wheelchair spinning smoothly to face her. "Please. Stay and sit."

She stays. She sits.

She cannot bear to look at him, his shaven head and leaning forward, towards her, yet keeping a respectable distance between them. A distance that hasn't existed before.

"I've been trying to respect the new... boundaries you have set for yourself." There's a delicate pause on the word, and his expression remains as calm, as polite as ever. "I thought that maybe you needed time to heal over what has happened. Much like everyone else."

Jean cannot bear this. "Professor -"

"Charles, please." There's a wry smile on his face. "I think you've earned that right more than anyone else, Jean."

She flinches at her name.

The smile grows, if possible, wryer. She can hear it in his voice. "It vexes you," he says, "Doesn't it? Saving my life -"

"I didn't -"

"But you did. Jean, you did save my life." She flinches back again, and smile gone, he looks at her, confused, almost pleadingly. "And I am so thankful for that. I'm so grateful, you must know that."

She had saved him, healed him, cured him. Apocalypse had created a crater-like wound in his body and soul with every punch, every injury, and Jean had cleansed him free, thoroughly, like a mighty ocean's wave coursing through a forest.

"I know," she murmurs guiltily. Then, almost horrified, "It doesn't vex me, I'm not - I'm not ashamed, believe me, I -"

"I know, Jean," he says calmly, and that does it.

 _Jean Jean Jean! Let go Jean! Jean let go!_ and she had _lowered_ her guard. She had let go of the only thing that had ever given her a sense of security - and she had done it for the one man who had given her that sense.

 _Jean let go!_ and she had _let that monster through_ -

A shattering noise rips through the air. Jean looks up, horrified. The glass covering the clock in the corner has burst, and then for one exquisite second - time stops.

The glass, shimmering in the sunlight, falls forward, slowed down and magnified by a thousand. The sound of the glass cracking still echoes vaguely like bell chimes in her ears, and she can hear the soft _thud_ the fragments make as very slowly, one by one, they hit the carpeted floor.

In the midst of the stillness, Charles Xavier leans forward, gaze intense.

"You helped me," he says. "Let me help you."

"You betrayed me," she tells him in the vacuum stone cold silence. "You were never supposed to die like that."

"We cannot control everything. Not even I." he replies, infinitely wiser. And then, a knowing glint slips into his gaze. "And not even you."

"But _you_ can!" She leans forward, all of her anger and frustration coming to the surface. " _You_ can control things, but you just let him take you, let him almost kill you -"

"Everything happened so quickly. I -"

"It doesn't matter!" She lashes out, and a look of surprise covers his face. "You brought me in here, you're the only one who can control my powers if I can't, and you just - you - you almost _died_!"

There's a pause. The clock's glass shard glitter in the air, suspended in slow animation. A look of understanding slips over his face very slowly.

"I scared you." He says, like it's just dawning on him, gazing at her. "Forgive me."

Because for the briefest moment when he laid, dying in her lap, Jean thought that she would be alone in the world. The professor was the only one strong enough, powerful enough to calm her erratic powers, the only one who has the remotest idea what it is like inside her head, where she fights for control every single day. What would she do if he had just _died?_

The words rise up in her at once. "I'm scared, Professor."

Time catches up at once. All the glass fragments are on the floor, the slow silence is gone, and she realizes her hands are shaking.

And her eyes are wet.

She does not resist when he wheels his chair forward and gathers her in a hug.

"No longer, Jean."

* * *

 


End file.
